Elon Musk becomes the richest man in history, his fortune estimated at 348 billion

His fortune is equivalent to the GDP of Denmark or Egypt. Above all, it is the greatest personal fortune of all time. According to the economic and financial magazine Bloomberg, Elon Musk's economic capital reached a record $348 billion thanks to a rise in Tesla shares and the very high valuation of his artificial intelligence company, xAI. Two phenomena closely linked, according to our colleagues, to the victory of Donald Trump and the closeness displayed between the two men.

Indeed, since the Republican's election, Tesla's share price has increased by 40%, while the market hopes that the new regulations promised by Trump will be more than favorable to the billionaire's company. And if over the past year, Elon Musk's fortune has swelled by some 119 billion dollars, it should continue to grow: discussions around new financing from SpaceX speculate a potential valuation of 250 billion dollars, which would increase Musk's capital by an additional 18 billion.

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For comparison, the man considered the richest of the 20th century, John Rockefeller, the oil tycoon who created Standard Oil (Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and Esso) had assets estimated at 1 billion dollars, i.e. The equivalent of 336 billion dollars today.

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Possible conflicts of interest

After having provided the Trump campaign with some 100 million dollars, Elon Musk was offered a tailor-made position within his administration: the billionaire should co-direct the “Department of Government Effectiveness” with Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur in biotechnology, 39 years old. The American press, however, believes that the “government ethics rules [pourraient l’obliger] to divest assets or place them in a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest.”